Cinque Terre: Corniglia

The Cinque Terre comprises of five villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Vernazza, Corniglia and Monterosso al Mare (by order, if taking a train from La Spezia), and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Evi and I had picked Riomaggiore earlier because we found one small cheap room to share but when our friend, Evelyn, decided to join us for this fun trip, we could not find a room that fit 3 persons at Riomaggiore that is within our lean budget. So we searched booking dot com and found a cheap apartment at Corniglia that can fit 3 persons.

From the train station, Evelyn who reached Corniglia earlier, told us to take the City Centro bus just outside the train station. We paid 2.50 Euro to the bus driver, but then found out later from Evelyn that we could get cheaper bus ticket from the small tourism office located inside the station. Alternatively, we can climb Lardarina, a long brick flight of more than 300 steps, but we were both not up to it as we had been travelling since morning and did not have the energy to climb up. We would be blue-black catching our breath. ;P

The village stretches along the main road, Fieschi Road (or Via Fieschi), and the houses have one side facing this road and the other facing the sea. Corniglia is characterised by narrow roads and a terrace in the rock from which all other four Cinque Terre’s villages, two on one side and two on the other, can be seen. The houses are lower set, and only more recently higher, similar to those of the villages of the hinterland.

Corniglia is not directly adjacent to the sea. Instead, it is on the top of a promontory about 100 metres high, surrounded on three sides by vineyards and terraces, the fourth side descends steeply to the sea.

The origin of the village dates back to the Roman Age as testified by the name, which finds its roots in Gens Cornelia, the Roman family to whom the land belonged. In the Middle Ages it was a possession of the counts of Lavagna, the lords of Carpena and of Luni. In 1254 Pope Innocent IV gave it to Nicolò Fieschi, who held it until 1276, when the village was acquired by the Republic of Genoa.

We spent only a short time discovering Corniglia the day we arrived and the next morning before going to Vernazza in the afternoon. As for food, we had pasta al pomodorro, lemon pie, sandwich with anchovies, bell pepper, eggplant and olive and of course not leaving behind, our favourite drinks; coffee and hot chocolate.

Here are more photos around Corniglia:

Corniglia Piazza.

Having breakfast at the piazza.

Having limoni (lemon) pie at the terrace by the cliff.

Lemon is one of the main crops at Cinque Terre.

The neighbourhood.

Sunrise.

Sunset.

From Corniglia, we witnessed the sunrise over Manarola and ended the day witnessing a sunset over Monterosso. We will never forget the feeling nor the beauty.